Competition Saves Americans $462,000,000

As more and more corporations are catching onto the fact that American’s wanna spend money on portable book readers, they are working as fast as they can to add features and portability all the while slashing prices.

For a long time there was only one; Amazon’s Kindle. It was okay but expensive. Since then, Barnes and Noble, joined by Borders, has entered the market. The result? A better product but still pretty expensive.

Barnes & Noble sent out press releases announcing it was dropping the price of its Nook e-reader from $259 to $199. The book seller also introduced a Wi-Fi only version for a mere $149. Within hours Amazon.com fired off its response: the Kindle e-reader’s price would drop from $259 to $189, $10 lower than Barnes & Noble’s offering.

And just like that, the price of the readers dropped just north of 27%!

But what caused this sudden rush to the bottom? Why this drastic price reduction? Is it because the two companies need to slug it out with each other? Unlikely; they were happy soaking us for that extra $70 for months. What then?

The answer is simple: Competition.

The price cuts from Barnes & Noble and Amazon may, however, be more in reaction to the traction Apple’s is getting, rather than to each other’s products.

When a giant of a company enters the market, the quality goes up and the price goes down.

Happens almost every. single. time.

Meanwhile Venezuelans continue to live through coffee rations even as they are the worlds largest exporter of the stuff.